Technical Report Writing

Perhaps the most important factor affecting your professional advancement is your ability to write effectively. Written reports are not only a lasting testament to your abilities; they are often your only link with higher management. If reports are understandable, they demonstrate your technical competence. Unfortunately, for engineers, both technical and communicative talents are needed. You need both. No one will appreciate your technical expertise if it is hidden behind a mask of awkward phraseology, jumbled logic and circumlocution. If you want success; if you want recognition; if you want rewards for your efforts; you must communicate your ideas effectively, and that means you must write well.

This requisite for effective written communication is common to many professions, but it is crucial to engineers who must present and interpret technical information correctly. A key element in the advancement and refinement of engineering technology is the preparation of concise and informative reports which document the results of technical work. The value of any scientific research is highly dependent upon the quality and clarity with which its findings are presented since the report reflects the caliber of the work as well as the competence of the investigator.

Effective technical writing requires many of the skills and principles common to successful engineering: organization, analysis, accuracy, efficiency, and consistency. Through common sense and experience, the art of clear and precise technical writing should become easy if you make a conscious effort to improve.

Three fundamental steps are essential to the development of a technical report:

(1) Analyze the objective. The objective governs the direction in which the report proceeds and the scope of the objective limits the report content. The objective is the goal towards which the writer's efforts are directed. Keep the objective in mind at all times.

(2) Assemble the pertinent information. Information is necessary to support development in the report. Sources of information may include: documentation, experimentation, observation, and logical thinking. Only material which is relevant to the report objective should be include.

(3) Prepare a working outline. The outline delineates the magnitude and direction of the writer's task. Design the structure of a report to ensure a logical and fluid progression towards a definitive conclusion.

Once you've organized an outline, the actual writing process may begin. The writing should generally proceed as follows:

(1) Prepare a rough draft putting information down in your own words following the format of your outline.

(2) Refine the text by rearranging material for better clarity, removing ambiguities and correcting for misspellings and errors in grammar. This requires the writer to read and reread his words while critically examining each sentence. Read each sentence carefully to understand its meaning. The sentence should be clear and concise and subject to a single interpretation. Take care to ensure each sentence says exactly what you mean to say, each paragraph works with a single idea, and that the report contains only material that is pertinent to the objectives.

(3) Prepare a final draft so that the text material is legible. Type the report if possible to ensure a neat, clean presentation. Prepare the tables, graphs and figures in their final form along with all other supplemental information. Collate the material properly.

This procedure holds for a variety of technical reports. But keep in mind when you are writing a report, the type of report you wish to write and the audience for whom it is being written. The report must be fine-tuned to the level of the reader and fit the requirements of the report objective.